


A Tangled Web

by Caitlin141414



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Alex is unable to say no to Kelley, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Spiderwoman au, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-09-26 16:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitlin141414/pseuds/Caitlin141414
Summary: Alex used to think being in love with her best friend was her biggest problem, then she was bitten by a radioactive spider and gained a bunch of insane abilities. Now her biggest problems revolve around dodging bullets and keeping her neighbourhood safe, she's still in love with her best friend but its no longer her biggest concern. Weird how quickly things can change.Or,Alex becomes Spiderwoman and is hopelessly in love with Kelley throughout all of it.





	1. Sneaking into an abandoned lab, what could possibly go wrong?

Alex knew this was a bad idea, really every idea which involves Kelley, Pinoe and Ashlyn is always a bad idea. But Kelley pouted and used those stupid puppy eyes, so Alex said she’d go. You see, Alex is unable to say no to Kelley O’Hara, she can try all she wants but, in the end, she breaks and goes along with Kelley’s stupid ideas. It’s always worth it because she smiles at Alex and that makes Alex feel on top of the world. 

That’s why she’s inside of the creepy abandoned lab way past her curfew because she can’t say no to her best friend. Of course, they’re joined by less than half of her soccer teammates. “I swear guys if I die here,” Carli grumbles as they sneak through the broken window of the lab. Alex has no clue how they even convinced Carli to come with them, but Alex is happy that she is considering that Carli may be able to prevent them from doing something stupid (well more stupid anyway). 

“Carlos, aren’t you the one who’s always talking about team building activities?” Kelley replies with a cheeky grin on her face. Alex can’t help but smile at her best friend. Carli mutters something under her breath in response. The three masterminds of their little group trip begin arguing over which dark corridor to go down, so the group decide to split off into various little groups promising to meet up in half an hour. Alex watches as Ashlyn leads Ali, Becky and Carli down one of the one with its door hanging off its upper hinge. Megan takes Christen and Tobin down another. Leaving just Kelley and Alex to go down the worst of the three corridors, well, Kelley more dragging Alex down it.

She’s about to complain about going into the corridor with various warning signs on the door, but Kelley interlaces their fingers. If she does die down here, at least, she’s holding Kelley O’Hara’s hand. Her best friend smirks at her. “I’m not letting you escape, Al.” The forward lets Kelley pulls her down the hall. 

“You know, my uncle used to work here. He never explained why it closed, some kind of accident I think.” Kelley explains as they walk down the creepiest hallway Alex has ever seen. It’s not completely dark, due to the red emergency lights flicking on and off, large cobwebs line the walls and glass is scattered across the floor. 

“Kell?”

“Umm.”

“Can we not talk about any kind of accident?” Alex asks, not wanting to feel any less nervous about their current situation (ignoring the butterflies in her stomach from Kelley’s hand in hers). 

Kelley smirks at her. “Don’t be scared, Al. I’ll protect you.” The other girl replies, bumping their shoulders together. Alex rolls her eyes in response. “Hey! Have you seen my guns?” Kelley says in shock and begins showing off her biceps. 

Alex begins laughing at her best friend’s ridiculous antics. “You’re so weird!” Alex responds still laughing, trying hard not to stare at Kelley’s arms. "Will you stop doing that?" She asks trying not to giggle too much. 

“I will when you admit that I can protect you from any evil monster hiding in this lab.” 

Alex sighs in defeat. “Fine, you’re a complete badass and will beat anything trying to kill us.” She says giving in because Alex always gives into Kelley.

Kelley grins at her and takes them deeper into the lab. They arrive at a room full of glass tubes full of cobwebs and various screens attracted to each tube. Kelley let’s go of Alex’s hand and walks over to one of the tubes. “Woah, they’re full of dead spiders,” Kelley says tapping on the glass.

“Kelley, don’t touch that!” Alex says worried about breaking anything dangerous. 

Kelley rolls her eyes, always the daredevil. “They’re dead, Alex.” She deadpans walking back over to her. She puts her hands on Alex’s shoulders, “Stop worrying, nothing bad will happen to you. Pinoe, Ash and I do stuff like this all the time.” Kelley says trying to calm Alex down.

“I’m not worried about me; I’m worried about you. You never think before you do things.” 

Kelley smirks at her, “I’ll be alright, Al. Always am.” Alex just rolls her eyes and lets her best friend continue exploring. She knows that the defender has a talent for finding trouble, on and off the pitch, it’s just one of the reasons why she’s so enamoured by Kelley. Rolling her eyes again, Alex goes over to one of the walls near the exit and waits for Kelley to get bored. She leans against the wall; she watches as Kelley pokes various things making funny comments about each thing she comes to in the lab. 

Alex doesn’t notice something crawl onto her shoulder, down her arm and settling on her exposed hand. “Kell, I think we should head back.” Kell nods in agreement and walks towards Alex. She decides down at her watch to check the time, wondering how much her parents are going to kill her. A scream rips from her throat at the spider on her left hand, it is mostly black with various coloured spots across its back. She feels the spider bite her, but in her panic doesn’t register the bite. She shakes the little demon off her hand and squashes it under her shoe. 

Kelley scrambles over to her. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She asks clearly worried about her. Her hands grip Alex’s upper arms once she reaches her. 

Alex takes a deep calm breath before speaking. “I’m fine, it was just a spider.” She says having calmed down.

Kelley sighs in relief. “Alright, Morgan. I’m not letting you out of my sight again, it’s clearly too dangerous for you to be alone. I’ve already failed in my duty to protect you; I’ll never be able to sleep again.” Kelley says dramatically. 

“I’m sure you’ll manage, Kell,” Alex replies dryly. Kelley laughs and takes Alex’s hand once again dragging her back out of the lab. 

* * *

The next morning, Alex certainly isn’t fine. Her limbs are heavy, she has a fever and it’s like her senses have been turned to from 10 to 100. As soon as, her mom tries to get her up, she notices that Alex clearly isn’t well and decides that she isn’t going into school, Alex does try to protest but her mom won’t hear it and she stops protesting when she can't sit up without feeling lightheaded.

Her phone starts ringing, and Alex can’t remember anything being that loud ever. A groan escapes her lips as she grabs the phone from her bedside table. “We’re almost at yours. You ready?” Kelley says through the phone. For the first time, Alex wished she hadn’t answered Kelley’s call because her voice is too loud and it’s causing her headache to get worse. Her problems double when she opens her eyes and its way too bright.

Alex screws her eyes closed and uses her free hand to rub her temple, ignoring the fact that it’s wet with sweat. “I’m not going in today. I’m dying.” She croaks out with much difficulty. 

“Are you alright?” Kelley replies worriedly. Alex can make out Allie asking what’s going on and why Kelley sounds so concerned. The three of them usually walk to school together in the mornings.

Alex decides to put on a brave face. “I’ll be fine, Kell. It’s probably a 24hr type of thing.” That claim isn’t all that outrageous, Alex usually isn’t sick and when she is it passes quickly. Also, her sister had something similar a couple of weeks ago, though at the time Alex was sure that Jeri was faking to avoid that history test, now she isn't so sure.

“I dunno, what if you caught a deadly disease from the lab?” Kelley said dramatically, clearly amusing herself.

Alex rolled her eyes. “I’m glad you can find amusement in my suffering.” She replies dryly. 

“Get better soon, Al. Big game on the weekend and we need you.” That was true, they were playing their biggest rivals for the championship in 3 days and a win would guarantee them a spot in the state playoffs; all the team needed to be 100% for it. They then said goodbye, with Allie telling her to get better. Alex, then, fell back to sleep involuntarily.

* * *

The next time, she wakes up it is almost 22 hours later. Miraculously she feels better than ever, like she could climb Everest like she could run about 1000 marathons back to back or most impressively tell Kelley that she’s in love with her (well not that, Alex will never voluntarily do that but she feels like she could). She happily climbs out of bed and begins to get ready. She also decides to go for a run for an hour considering she has 2 hours before she has to go to school. 

When she gets back from her run, her parents are looking at her alarmed. Alex notes that it was the best run of her life, she’s never felt quicker, stronger and fitter. She smiles at them both and explains the sudden compulsion to go for a run then goes to grab a shower. When she meets up with Kelley and Allie, they are just as alarmed at her miraculous recovery.

That feeling continues throughout the day. She’s not even that annoyed when Servando (her freshman ex-boyfriend) makes another fruitless pass at her, Kelley (Alex’s knight in shining armour) deals with him as she does. She doesn’t care when Allie steals half of her food like she always does. Nothing can dampen Alex’s mood. 

“Hey, Sugar bear.” Oh, wait there was one thing. Kelley’s stupid girlfriend. With her stupid face and stupid voice and stupid name. Really Kelley’s girlfriend is just the most annoying thing in Alex’s life and it’s not because Alex is jealous, she’d hate the girl anyway. Why can’t anyone else see that this girl is the worst? Well, Ashlyn doesn’t like _Sara_ and is clearly the only one seeing things clearly. That is ignoring the fact that Sara briefly dated Ali before Ash womaned up and told Ali that she was in love with her. Alex also ignores the voice in her head (and Ashlyn) telling her to do the same.

As soon as Kelley turns around and they begin talking, Alex grips the table and starts scrolling through her Instagram, blocking out their stupid conversation. God, she hates _Sara_ so much. She just wishes that she could throw the girl to the moon, then she’d never have to hear those stupid pet names (which even Kelley cringes at sometimes). Stupid _Sara_ dating her best friend and acting like Alex is meant to be okay with it after she tried to crash Krashlyn last year, yeah, no way. 

A piece of hair falls into Alex’s face and she tries to move her free hand to move it. However, her hand is stuck to the table. When she pulls her hand upwards again, the table is the thing that lifts. She quickly covers by saying, “Ow, my knee.” Allie calls her a klutz before her best friends and Sara turns back to their conversation. 

_“Why won’t my hand unstick? This is so strange.”_ Alex thinks, half frustrated and half perplexed. She stares hard at her hand willing it to unstick from the table. She tentatively tries to lift her pinkie figure, it doesn’t move. She tries with each finger and fails with each. _“Ok, maybe if I just relax.” _Alex finally lifts her hand; she isn’t sure whether it’s due to the relief of Kelley’s girlfriend leaving or her relaxing, but she doesn’t really care. When she touches her fingers, they aren’t sticky at all and neither is the table. 

Alex decides to ignore what happened at lunch, well that is until the similar strange things start happening again during soccer practice. It started out normal enough; their warm-up is like normal, maybe baring some extra feats she isn’t normal capable of but nothing too major. During drills, Alex notices that she is quicker than normal, like a lot quicker. When they play a training match, she notices that she’s a lot more agile and that she’s weirdly stronger being able to hold off Becky with ease. Her reflexes are insanely quick, at one-point Tobin drills in a cross extremely quick and Alex is able to react by heading the ball into the top corner with little to no trouble.

The strangest thing which happens after training. Alex is waiting for Allie and Kelley to get out of the school as they had to pick up some schoolwork. She’s leaning against the metal bike rack when a group of football players comes out of the school cackling to each other. “And then I told Mrs. Lynch that I didn’t care what she thought about my project because her female brain is too small to comprehend my work.”

Alex rolls her eyes at the blockheads. They all begin howling with laughter. “What did the bitch do, Gaz?”

“She went ballistic, nearly turned red with anger.” He shrugged after saying that. “She’s probably on her period.” He added laughing to himself. Alex gripped the metal bar in annoyance. He then turned to her and shamelessly looked her up and down. “Lookin’ good, Morgan.”

Alex scoffed at him as if she’d ever want those Neanderthals talking to her. “Bite me.”

The sexist pig smirked at her. “If that’s what you’re into.” He began laughing to himself again. She felt her grip on the bar tighten, she then rolled her eyes at him and scoffed. Luckily, he began walking away having bugged her enough for one day. Alex glares holes into the back of his head and grips the bar even harder than before.

Kelley and Allie arrived out of the school. Alex lifted her hand from the bar and walked towards her friends. However, she did watch a look back at the steel bar to find that she’d left a hand imprint on it. That was definitely not there a couple of minutes ago. _“Ok, something is seriously wrong with me?” _Alex thought as she reached her friends. 

When Alex got home, she decided to test out what was going on with her since she was in an empty house. First, she tried lifting her desk to find that she easily did. She continued going up in weight until she found herself lifting her couch above her head with ease. Alex had no clue how she could lift her couch, but she could, and she definitely wasn’t dreaming.

She then decided to try making her hands sticky again. Alex retreated to her room for this experiment, after fixing the slight mess she left downstairs. After locking her door just in case one of her sisters got home early and decided to forgo knocking. She also draws her curtains just in case her neighbours were home and caught a glimpse of what she was doing. 

Alex pressed her left hand against the wall and wills it to stick. After about a half a minute of staring at her hand, Alex notices a red dump on the back of her hand. It looks like a bug bite. Then she remembered the spider from the lab and the fact that it definitely bit her. _“Is that what’s causing this?” _She wondered before refocusing on sticking to the wall.

She tried to pull her hand away and found that indeed her hand was stuck to the wall. Alex then proceeded to relax her hand and will it to unstick and it did. After about an hour of her messing with her new strange power, finding that it also worked with her feet and to a lesser degree the rest of her body. She then decided to try to climb the wall because there must be a limit to how crazy things can get today… Right? Well, it wasn’t climbing walls and that’s for sure because Alex is now hanging from the ceiling of her bedroom.

In her complete focus on sticking to her wall, she doesn’t notice her sisters arrive home. She only notices when she hears knocking from her door and Jeri’s voice telling her to open it. “One second,” Alex says trying not to panic and silently thanking herself for locking it because her older sister is in the habit of not waiting after knocking. Alex first detaches her feet from the ceiling, getting as close to the ground as possible finding that there is about half a metre between her and the floor. She let herself drop, landing gracefully with little noise. She then scrambled over to the door to ask what her sister wanted.

* * *

Later that night, Alex decided to revisit the lab. She was 90 percent sure that the spider bite from the lab was causing this. She put on a black hoodie and threw the hood over her head to cover her face. At about midnight, Alex snuck out of her house utilizing her new powers to reach the ground from her bedroom window. She did think about telling Kelley or Allie but decided that it would be easy to keep this to herself for a while, so she went alone.

The lab was about a 30-minute walk from Alex’s house. However, she decided to try out her new abilities and started running as fast as she could. She found that she was definitely quicker, like a lot quicker. She figures that no one will really bother giving her any mind due to the chaotic nature of New York. The whole journey only took about 5 minutes in total. She added enhanced speed to her joining list of strange abilities.

She entered the lab through the broken window they used two nights ago and went down the same hall that she went down with Kelley. The red lights were no longer flickering which helped Alex making her way down the corridor as it was now normal lighting. When she reached the room where the spider had bit her, she walked down to the jars which Kelley was looking at.

The spiders inside where an unnatural shade of red on their body with their legs being dark blue. The dead spiders were kind of glowing. Alex walked away from the jar of dead spiders to where she was standing hoping that the one that bit her was still there. When she found the little monster, it looked like the dead ones, but its glow was brighter. She picked it up by its legs and studied it even more.

“Can I ask what the hell you're doing here?” Alex dropped the spider in shock. She turned to see a woman with short bleach blonde hair looking at her with raised eyebrows. She didn’t look armed, but Alex wasn’t sure.

She recovered from her shock and crossed her arms across her chest. “You wouldn’t believe if I told you,” Alex replied honestly.

The woman chuckled, “Try me, kid.”

“I was bitten by one of these spiders 2 days ago and now I have superpowers.” She said bluntly because no one in their right mind would believe that.

“If you were bitten by one of my spiders, you’d be dead.” The woman said rolling her eyes.

Alex’s eyes widened at that reply. “Wait, what? I’d be dead?” 

“You’ve seen them, do you think anyone would survive them? We didn’t even get to animal testing, all cells that came into contact with the spider’s venom were destroyed in minutes. Believe me, I created them.” She replied bored. Alex’s mind was racing. One, she was meant to be dead. Two, this was the woman who created those spiders that gave her superpowers. Third, how did this woman know she was here? “Just get out of here, kid. It’s not safe.” The woman then moved to leave the lab.

“Wait!” Alex shouted after the strange scientist. The woman ignored her, clearly having already decided that she was done talking to her. “I was bitten by one of those spiders and got superpowers! I can prove it!”

“Are you serious?” The woman asked turning around, clearly irritated by Alex. “Ok, kid. I’ll bite. Prove it.”

Alex looked up at the ceiling to find it about 3 metres tall. She then leapt upwards and easily spun her body so that she landed against the roof with both her hands and feet attached to it. Alex then decided to try something out and took away her hands and hung upside down from the ceiling by her feet. “Believe me now?” She asked smirking at the shocked scientist.


	2. With Great Power comes... you know the rest.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex continues to figure out her new abilities and what she could do with them.

It turned out that the scientist was called Dr Abby Wambach and that she was willing to help Alex figure out what the hell was going on with her. She’d been given her number after she explained all the weird things that were happening to her after the bite. They were going to meet up at Abby’s new lab after her school soccer game.

Alex was barely thinking about the game. Three days ago, it was the most important thing but now it wasn’t even her first concern. Soccer was her life, her purpose in life was to become the best player in the world, that was her destiny. Now, Alex wasn’t so sure of that; she still loved soccer, but it didn’t feel like her destiny anymore. Her destiny was now tied to these strange powers.

They won. They did it in dramatic fashion with Alex scoring the winning goal in stoppage time making the game finish 2-1 (with Tobin getting the first). Alex was nearly crushed by the hug Kelley and for a brief moment Alex allowed herself to enjoy the feeling of Kelley’s arms wrapped around her. Then the rest of their teammates joined in and the moment was broken. 

The team went out for pizza in celebrated. Alex was able to get away claiming that she had an important interview for an internship and there was no way to rearrange. Kelley pouted and pleaded for Alex to join them, she only got Alex to partial agree with her promising to meet up with the rest of the team at Ashlyn’s penthouse later on in the night (Alex is powerless against Kelley, even if she can now bend metal).

Alex sat on a metal chair whilst Abby took a blood sample. They’d been doing numerous tests for the last 2 hours to try and figure out what the spider bite had actually done to her. “Can I ask a question?” Alex asked the scientist. Abby just nodded, preparing to start taking blood. Alex winced as the needle went into her arm. “Why were the spiders created?”

Abby sighed. “We were looking for a way to cure cancer using their venom.” She said as she withdrew the needle from Alex’s arm.

“What happened?”

“Well, we were tried to get the venom to target certain cells, but we never really were able to do that. The venom destroyed the cancer cells, but it also destroyed almost all the other cells. Funding was pulled and we were left with a bunch of radioactive spiders.” She explained tiredly. Alex could tell that she wasn't getting the full story but she let it go.

“How’d I survive?”

“I don’t know, at least not yet,” Abby replied taking the blood away to get it analysed in the other room. When she returned, she had various datasheets. “I’m not 100% what the bite has done to you just yet, but my guess is that it’s altered your DNA.”

“What?” Alex said in complete shock.

“Well, you're doing impossible things with such ease. Something in your biology has to have changed, my guess it's your DNA. I'll have more concrete proof once I get all these tests analysed.” Abby explained like she was a College Lecturer. She then gave Alex a smile, “ Just go enjoy your night, Alex.”

Alex chuckled. “ Thanks, Abby, I'd be lost without you.” She said picking up her backpack and leaving the lab waving goodbye to Abby. When she looked down at her phone, she saw various texts telling her to hurry up, mainly from Kelley and one from Ashlyn who was trying to get her to hurry up using pictures of Kelley looking sad (Alex definitely didn't use her powers to reach Ashlyn's quicker, nope, she'd never do that).

* * *

It had been 3 weeks since Alex was bit by the spider. Since then she’d figured out how to use her new strange abilities, Abby helping every step of the way. According to the older woman, her DNA had been altered by the radioactive bite leaving her superhuman. Alex hadn’t figured out what to do about her new powers yet, she had to do something productive with them, right?

However, that topic wasn't on her mind on the walk back from grabbing food with Allie. They’d decided to walk home because the pizza place they were at isn’t far from their houses in Queens. They were in relative silence with Alex absorbed by her text conversation with Kelley, who was grounded after breaking her curfew for the fourth night in a row. “Alex, I swear if you don’t tell Kelley that you’re in love with her, I’ll lose my mind,” Allie says after looking over at Alex's phone.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Alex says faking ignorance and putting her phone back into her pocket. She hasn’t told her friend outright but they both know that Allie knows, they’ve just never outwardly talked about it. Allie just levels her with a pointed look and raises her eyebrows. Alex sighs, “What am I meant to say?”

“Anything is better than nothing,” Allie replied quickly throwing her hands up in the air.

Alex laughs bitterly at the thought of telling the defender the full extent of her feelings. As if Alex was brave enough to do that. She then turned back to Allie and ran her figures through her own hair. “Kelley doesn’t feel the same. If I say something, I could lose her, I can handle a lot of things just not that.” She says running her hands through her hair.

“If there is a chance that Kelley feels the same isn’t it worth the risk?” Allie says trying to convince Alex to just try.

The striker shakes her head and sighs deeply, “Believe me, Allie, I’ve seen how she looks, _Sara_. She’s never looked at me that way.” Alex shallows the clump in her throat and how her voice is slightly cracking, “Not once. She doesn’t feel the same.” Thankfully, Allie stopped pushing Alex noticing how it was affecting her best friend.

Since Alex moved from LA in freshman year and met Kelley O’Hara, she’s been in love with her. They’d met during homeroom and instantly Alex was drawn to the girl who made her laugh way too easily. It took a while for her to realise and accept that fact but once she did, all the butterflies and inability to say no to Kelley made sense. In the early days, she thought about telling Kelley, but Alex was a coward and never had to the guts to do it. So, she watched Kelley date other people, Alex’s heartbreaking a little bit more each time. It was always worth the nights crying into her pillow, because Kelley was her person, and no one made her happier than the girl from Georgia.

As the years went on, the nearly unbearable heartbreak turned into an ache. She was more in love with Kelley than she’d ever been, it seemed with each action Kelley took, she fell further, but she was used to the pain of her unrequited love. She’d long stop hoping that Kelley loved her back and she no longer cried over that, Alex figured that was some type of achievement. She’d accepted that she’d probably love Kelley for the rest of her life and that Kelley would never love her back.

It wasn’t her destiny to be loved by Kelley and live a nice simple life with the girl she loves. Her destiny was to be given these strange powers and to pine over a girl who'd never love her back. But she was given these powers for a reason and she had to use them to do something good, that was the least she could do with these powers.

* * *

That presented itself two nights later, she was running back from Abby’s lab. They weren’t really doing anything that day, but Alex enjoyed the scientist’s company, whether it was testing Alex’s abilities or helping Abby with her work Alex enjoyed her time with Abby. She was thankful that Abby seemed to feel the same way which was good considering Alex was spending a lot of time there these days.

She grabbed some snacks from her local corner shop giving the owner, an elderly man who Alex had never seen not happy. She knew that they were closing soon after all it was 10 o’clock at night. On her way out she noticed that only one other person was in the shop, he’s wearing a hoodie with it pulled over his head and both of his hands are in his pockets. Alex doesn’t take much notice about it and starts to fully head home.

As Alex moves to put back on her headphones, she hears raised voices from within the shop. She takes a brief look back inside to find the hooded figure screaming at the cowering owner with a pistol in his hand, Alex was going to just walk away because she’s no hero. That changes when she hears the old man whimper. She can’t just let this continue; she has to do something. Right? If there is a chance she can stop this, shouldn’t she? She’s been given these great powers, isn’t it her responsibility to do act?

Alex pulls her hood over her head concealing part of her face. She quietly re-enters the shop, luckily not being noticed by the robber who’s completely concentrated on the old man. He’s screaming about the old man opening the cash register quickly. She’s able to sneak around behind him using the shopping aisles.

Alex grabs him by the shoulder spinning him around with her left hand. Before the robber can react, she throws her right fist into his jaw. He crumpled to the ground, with his gun flying across the floor. Alex quickly looks over to the old man to make sure that he is okay, lucky he looks unharmed. She quickly glances back to the robber to find him groaning on the floor.

“Hell, of a right hook, young lady.” The old man says staring at his attacker in shock. He turns back to her with a kind smile. “Well, thank you I owe you a great debt.”

Alex is about to respond that it was nothing, but a tingle in the back of her head, it's like an alarm bell going off in the back of her head telling her that something is wrong. Instinctively Alex ducks down to the left with a bullet whizzing past her ear missing by about an inch. The robbers' eyes are bulging out of his head at the fact that he missed her. 

She recovers from her own shock to grab the man’s arm pointing it to the sky preventing him from shooting her again. Then she punches him square in the face, knocking him out for good. Alex picks up his gun and hands it to the old man with a nod. “I’d call the police.” Then after checking that the man is still out cold, she leaves the shop.

Alex at that moment decided that she’d use her powers to protect people. The vulnerable innocents who no one else will fight for. Alex using her new powers to stand up for them. That’s her destiny.

* * *

It took almost a week for Alex to finish her disguise. The costume itself was quite simple; it was plain red hoodies with a black spider onto the front of it, tight blue leggings with black gloves and boots. She’d also created a red mask with a black webbed design running throughout it and she’d cut out eye holes with white tinted sunglasses lens in the gaps. She also had an earpiece fitted into it so that she could actually answer calls whilst she was in the suit, though, she didn’t know who was calling.

Although that was rather time-consuming, Alex had an idea which took her a long time to perfect, almost a month. If Alex was modelling herself after the spider which bit her, she’d need her own webs. That process made her eventually turn to Abby for help after Alex broke her bedroom window in a trial gone wrong. With Abby working on the webbing fluid itself and Alex the web-shooters it didn’t take long for them to be working.

The web-shooters were definitely the coolest thing Alex had ever seen. They were twin black leather bracelets which covered about a quarter of her forearm, two webbing fluid cartridges on the inside of the design and she could fire the webs using her middle and ring finger touching the trigger on her palm. She also created a utility belt to store extra cartridges of webbing fluid.

Throughout the process of making the web-shooters, she’d still been stopping small scale crimes wherever she could. She’d not really gotten any real attention for it, yet which Alex was happy about, she didn’t need that at this moment in time as she still wasn't sure what she was doing most of the time. But now with the web-shooters, she’d finally be able to step it up by being able to move a lot quicker around the city.

Alex was currently stood on top of the 100ft skyscraper across from Abby’s lab. They’d weight tested the webbing to know that it was sufficient to allow Alex to swing on it, now it was all just a leap of faith. She found it kind of ironic because throughout her life Alex was always someone who overthought things, whether it was simple things like what she was going to wear or more complicated things like her feelings for Kelley, Alex always thought things through and never really took risks.

For the first time in her life, Alex didn’t overthink it. She ran across the building’s roof as fast as she possibly could and jumped off the edge without a single thought running through her head. Wind howling in her ears and in complete free fall. It was liberating. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. Alex never wanted to stop.

As she aimed at one of the other buildings and fired webbing at it, hoping she'd catch it. It stuck and soon Alex was swinging through the air at incredible speeds. It was the most surreal thing Alex had ever experienced. She felt invincible at that moment. She noticed some people gawking at her as she swung through the air, some had their phones pointed at her.

Then she messed up her timing and ended up going completely out of control. She was finally stopped by flying into a wall and landing onto the hard roof of the smaller building next to it. The wind was immediately knocked out of her and she hit her head hard when she landed. She lay on the ground completely dazed. She took off her mask, trying to help get oxygen into her lungs.

After about 2 minutes laying on the ground trying to regain her breath and letting the pain lessen. She was also pretty sure that no one saw her mess up, so that was at least a positive. “Note to self, don’t fly into walls.” She grumbled rubbing her head and sitting up. Alex knew that she needed to get a lot better at that, but it was a good start.

“Hey! He stole my purse!” Someone shouted from the street below Alex. She groaned standing up to see a middle-aged woman pointed at a hooded figure pushing his way through the crowd. Alex smirked and pulled her mask down her face, then she took off into another swing. It was quite easy to catch up with the man. She fired webbing at the man’s wrists and tied them together whilst flipping over his head. She’d spent a lot of time figuring out how to many cool things with her webbing in the last week.

He stared at her in complete shock. Alex then took the bag from his hands. “What the hell are you?” He said, his eyes almost poking out his head. The people on the busy New York street stopped and were staring at her, even more, phones pointed at the scene.

“I dunno really.” She said with a shrug before pushing his against the wall and firing webbing at his chest making sure that he was stuck to the wall. “But that doesn’t below to you.” She then turned to the woman and handed her back her bag. “I believe this is yours.”

The woman looked at Alex in disbelief. “Thanks-“ She saw the woman look down at her chest and the spider on it, “Spiderling?” She says trying to guess what Alex was calling herself.

“Spider-woman.” Alex corrected before swinging away. Before she was out of earshot, she shouted, “Tell the police that the webs will dissolve in an hour or they can just cut it.” Then she swung away from the scene and back towards the lab.

Alex knew that all of this felt right, like a key in a lock. For one, she stopped someone from getting their bag stolen, which was always a good thing, but it was deeper than that. Alex had always been restless in a way, she was never able to keep to one just one thing, she felt like nothing completed her. However, for the first time, she felt complete. All of this felt right to her, this was what she was meant to do.


	3. Back to the lab again...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They win the State Championship, Alex and Kelley have a moment. Then Alex makes a discovery before being asked to go back to the place it all began, the lab.

It had been a month since Alex first began fighting crime and became a viral video star because you don’t see a woman in a brightly coloured costume swinging through downtown Manhattan every day. Hell, she even made the local news last week after she stopped a runaway car with her bare hands (not something Alex ever think would happen). Still, it was all quite small scale because Alex was nowhere near ready to do anything too big. After all, she was only 16 years old. Slowly over the course of the last month, she’d grown in her abilities, she could swing faster, react better, punch harder and was becoming more agile by the minute.

She’d also started helping Abby out with her certain projects, nothing too major because there were times where Alex would just stare blankly at Abby, but she was learning, and it happened less often these days. She felt like she owed Abby a lot, without Abby she’d never have been able to understand her new abilities and she was eternally grateful. However, today she put all her crime-fighting business on hold because it was the championship final. Hell, she didn’t even have her suit with her. The whole team had a zero minded focus on the game, everything had to come 2nd to this one game.

They had to win.

* * *

“Woooooooooo! State Champs, Bitch!” Ashlyn shouted raising her cup to the rest of the team and taking a big gulp of her drink. The rest of the team cheered and did the same with their own drink. They had been able to convince their parents to let them go Ashlyn’s after the game to celebrate as Ash’s parents were once again out of town (they also lied about not drinking).

As the night went on the group more and more drunk, although Alex’s tolerance had been significantly boosted meaning she wasn’t as drunk as she should be, but she was still tipsy. Alex was leaning against one of the walls watching her drunk teammates attempt to dance and trying to get anywhere near their level. “Stupid superpowers.” She muttered under her breath as she took another deep gulp of her drink.

“What are you mumbling about?” She heard Christen say walking over smiling. She wasn’t drunk from what Alex could tell.

Alex just shook her head. “It doesn’t really matter.” She replied taking another sip of her drink. “Odds on one of them ending up in the hospital.” She said pointing towards the group surrounding Kelley and Sonnett who were partaking in a drinking contest. 

Kelley finished before Emily causing her to start doing a victory dance, it was the dorkiest thing Alex had ever seen and she wouldn’t change a single thing about it. Their eyes then met, and Kelley smirked at her, that stupid attractive smirk of hers. Alex looked away and started hoping that her next sip would get her drunk quicker, so she took another. “You’d make a really cute couple,” Chris said with a smirk, clearly noticing how Alex was looking at Kelley.

Alex choked on her drink and after a couple of coughs, she looked back to Christen who was giving her a knowing look. _Did everyone on the team know? Was she that obvious? _“I have no idea where you’d get that idea.” She replied trying to act calm, earning another look from Christen.

“If it helps, I’m in a similar position.” Christen added trying to get Alex to admit her obvious crush on the defender.

Alex’s eyes widened. “With Kelley?” She knew that Kelley and Chris had been friends for a while, but she was sure that it was 100 percent platonic. Alex stood looking at Christen shocked, she'd never expected this out of her fellow attacker. Alex thought Kelley was perfect and all that but she really didn't think that Kelley was Christen's type, but she was wrong and Alex couldn't believe it. 

“Tobin,” Christen said looking towards the midfielder who was in a deep conversation with Pinoe. 

“Ohhhhhhh, that makes a lot more sense,” Alex said, finally seeing the writing on the wall about Christen and Tobin, she could be really obvious sometimes. She looked between the two and it all clicked into place. Alex was sure that Tobin felt the same, after all, Christen was the only person Tobin let wear her sacred snapback. 

Chris then lifted her cup to Alex, “To being in love with your best friend.” She said and Alex copied the motion laughing.

Alex caught a glimpse of Kelley leaving the penthouse and towards the balcony, she quickly excused herself worried that her best friend was going to end up falling off the balcony. Alex loved Kelley but she was a complete klutz sometimes. When she arrived, she found Kelley leaning against the railing. “Are you okay?” She asked walking over to the other girl.

Kelley jolted when she heard Alex’s voice, clearly not realising that she was there. She motioned for Alex to join her and so the forward did. Alex ignored the nip of the night air and the sting of the cold metal railing as she lay her arms next to Kelley’s. After a couple of moments of them just looking out at the New York skyline, Kelley rested her head against Alex’s shoulder and looped her arm through Alex’s. “I’ve missed this,” Kelley muttered in a quiet voice.

“We’ve never done this before,” Alex replied confused, she spoke at the same volume as her friend had. Alex didn't know why they were whispering but it felt like they were in their own little world where it was only the two of them. Kelley was clearly a bit drunk and drunk Kelley never really made much sense. She was also rather clingily, especially with Alex.

“I mean just hanging with you.”

“And the team?” Alex replied becoming even more confused. Sure, she’d been rather busy, but she still spent a lot of time with Kelley. Sure, it was normally with a group of their teammates and really alone anymore, but they hadn’t been doing that for a while now. It also wasn't completely her fault, Kelley always seemed to be on dates with _Sara _whenever Alex was free meaning she spent even more time at the lab with Abby or as Spiderwoman to keep her mind off that.

Kelley shook her head, “No, just you.” Alex then made a fatal error, she looked into Kelley’s eyes. Kelley was looking at her in a way she never really had before, it caused Alex’s heart rate to accelerate exponentially. She was drowning in Kelley’s eyes and she couldn’t look away, nor did she want to. There was a sudden urge to kiss Kelley, she wanted nothing more to just close the gap and go for it. Were their faces getting closer? Alex wondered, still in a trance. She felt like she couldn’t breathe, she was definitely lightheaded, and it wasn’t from the alcohol. Alex thought she saw Kelley’s eyes drift to her lips. _Did she just imagine that? _Alex also found herself doing the same. 

A loud beep of a car horn knocked Alex back to her senses and returned her firmly back to Earth. She turned her head towards the noise trying to keep her breathing steady. “We should head back inside.” She said standing up straight and removing any contact with Kelley, she’d almost broken her number one rule.

_Never act on her feelings._

* * *

Alex sat on the corner of a roof, just relaxing for a bit and watching out for any trouble. She’d spent her Friday evening swinging about the city. She’d helped some tourists who were having trouble navigating the city. Then she stopped a car theft. She had rescued a cat from a tree for two kids. She’d picked up some supplies Abby, as well as a pizza because Abby tended to forget to eat when she was deep in a project. It wasn’t her most action-packed day, but at least she was helping people.

Alex was about to head home as nothing seemed to be happening tonight. She stood up stretching and quickly scanned the area around her just to make sure that it all looked fine. Then she leapt off the building and began swinging home. She’d usually get changed at Abby’s and then walk home but it had been a long day and Alex just wanted to get home.

She was trying to do a triple flip between swings when she noticed _Sara _and another girl. She was about to continue her trip home but then she saw them holding hands. In her shock, Alex almost messed up her routine but was able to prevent herself from face planting. Now, Alex really had to investigate what was happening there because it really looked like a date and as Kelley’s best friend it was her duty to check if she was being cheated on her stupid girlfriend.

After following the two, keeping a respectful distance and moving from swing to jumping from rooftop to rooftop. The pair stopped outside of an apartment complex and began talking in front of the doors to the building. Then the whole thing was confirmed by the two of them kissing goodnight. _Sara _was cheating on Kelley. She wanted to strangle the girl. How could she treat Kelley that way when it was so clear that Kelley was devoted to her? Kelley was the best person Alex knew, anyone who had even a fraction of her affection was lucky, and _Sara _was just treating Kelley love like dirt. Alex couldn’t count the number of times she wished that Kelley looked at her like she did _Sara_. She couldn’t believe it, but even more, she was beyond angry. How dare she do that to Kelley?

Kelley was going to be crushed. Alex didn’t like _Sara_ and knew she was bad news from the beginning, but she really hoped that she was wrong for Kelley’s sake. She had to tell Kelley even it would hurt her, it was the fairest thing to do. Alex decided to think about how she was going to tell her best friend whilst she swung home.

Alex’s train of thought was cut off by her earpiece vibrating meaning she was getting a call. So, Alex landed on a nearby rooftop because they’d be able to hear the wind rushing past her and Alex wasn’t sure how she’d explain that away. She quickly answered it, “Hey Alex,” She heard through the earpiece and quickly recognized it to be Abby.

She began swinging again because Abby wouldn’t question why it sounded like she was flying. “Hi Abs, what’s up?” Alex asked going back to trying out different air tricks between swings. 

“Can I ask you a huge favour?” Abby sounded nervous, which was strange because she was usually so calm and collected.

“Of course, whatever you need.”

“I need you to go check out something in my old lab. It’s probably nothing but the motion sensors are picking up more movement and it’s the 3rd time this week. I’d usually go myself but I’m tied up here.” Abby had previously mentioned that she still monitored the lab when Alex asked how she knew that she was there. The older woman never explained why she still did so, but Alex decided it wasn’t the right time to ask. “If you can’t it's fine-“

Alex quickly cut off Abby, “I’ll do it. Is there anything I should be prepared for?” She asked as she turned around to head towards the abandoned lab.

“Probably just some stupid teenagers, it should be fine,” Abby answered calmly. “You should know after all.” She said clearly referring to the two times Alex herself snuck into the lab.

“Hey! It wasn’t my idea to sneak in the first time.” She protested, though she still knows that their whole plan to sneak into the lab was stupid even if it was the best thing that ever happened to her.

“Thank you so much, Alex. I owe you one.”

“If anyone owes anyone here, it’s me. You’ve helped me so much the last couple months, so let me help you.” Alex replied, she knew without Abby she’d be lost. The scientist was one of the most important people in her life despite their short time knowing each other. In Abby, Alex found herself having a friend, a mentor and if she was honest, a sister. She wouldn’t know what she’d do without her.

“Just be careful.”

Alex smirked, “Always am.”

When she reached the lab, it was eerily silent making Alex feel tenser than she should be. The lab seemed creeper than it normally was. She crawled in through one of the broken windows and then onto the roof of the central hub. Then a crash rang out from down one the corridors followed by a panicked voice that sounded weirdly familiar. Alex went towards the sound, still on the roof.

What she found caused her to roll her eyes. There stood Ashlyn and Christen, squabbling between themselves, inside of a dark room with a broken computer screen between them. “I really don’t see the big deal, no one actually works in this place anymore,” Ashlyn said flippantly pointing to the broken screen. Alex shook her head guessing that it had been Ashlyn broke it.

“One, we don’t actually know what’s here and two, I’m only here because of you and your stupid plans,” Chris replied glaring at the goalkeeper. She then began shaking her head and muttered, “I should’ve just asked Pinoe for help.” Alex, still unnoticed by her friends, gawked at them trying to figure out why they were actually here.

“Hey this will work, and you’ll be thanking me. I’m basically cupid. First Preath and then I’ll move onto Kellex, it will be easy.” Ashlyn said waving away Christen’s protests. Alex decided she was going to see where this went before she intervened because this way too entertaining to stop now. She also ignored the fact that Ashlyn was trying to meddle in her love life again, even if she hadn't done it yet.

Christen rolled her eyes at Ashlyn's response, “Yes, because nothing says romance then sneaking into a creepy lab-“ She cut herself off when her eyes landed on Alex and she screamed in shock. Ashlyn grabbed one of the keyboards and held it up like a weapon ready to attack Alex with it. 

Alex dropped from the roof gracefully and held her hands out, “Woah Woah, calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” Alex said, changing the pitch of her voice to try to keep her identity secret. The pair of them stared at her trying to figure out what to do next.

Ashlyn grinned at her after a few moments, “You’re the chick from the news that caught the car last week.” She said pointed at the emblem on Alex’s chest. “Spider-woman, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” She said awkwardly.

“You sound kinda similar,” Christen said looking at her inquisitively.

She was about to respond when she heard another crash from the opposite end of the lab. Alex sighed, she guessed that Ali and Tobin were probably here causing more types of trouble, Ashlyn and her stupid plans (Alex had long stopped asking Ashlyn for advice for that very reason). “Who else is here?” She asked sounding completely bored with the situation in front of her. 

Her two friends looked at each other confused. “No one else is here, I swear,” Christen answered honestly, if it had been Ash who had said it Alex wouldn’t have believed her, but it had been Christen and she didn’t lie (she an awful liar anyway). So, Alex believed that they didn't know who else was here, but someone else definitely would.

Alex turned to face back down the corridor. Who else would be here? “Stay here, if anything bad happens scream.” She told them worried for their safety. She didn’t know who else was here and it could just be an animal, but Alex had a bad feeling about all of this. She jumped back onto the roof and began quickly crawling towards the source of the noise.

When she arrived, she was shocked to see three people, each wearing similar jackets with a small logo on their chest. The more alarming thing was that they were carrying automatic rifles. This wasn’t the first time Alex had been confronted with guns, but they were always handguns, while the ones these people were carrying were military grade.

“You find anything useful yet?” One of them grunted at the other as he was checking easy cabinet within the old lab, his bleach blonde hair separating him from the other two. Alex had no idea what they were looking for, but she decided that it probably was for the best if they didn’t find anything.

“No, but if we don’t find anything the boss will have our head.” The one closest to Alex said pushing various things to the side. This one was laxer than his associates as his rifle was on his back. The other two were ready to fire at any moment, but one woman in their group, the one furthest from her was blocked by a thick support beam. So, she decided to target the blonde.

It all happened within a blink of an eye; Alex fired her webbing at the blonde making sure that his gun was flying out her his hands as she landed a swift kick to his jaw. The blonde flew into a wall and was clearly out of the fight. That laxness of the black-haired man and the support beam blocking off the woman meant that Alex had ample time to react. She fired webs at both of their guns and took them from their hands, she watched as the rifles flew out of the window.

Now, Alex would admit she wasn’t the best at hand to hand combat yet but due to her agility and spider-sense (that’s what she was calling anyway), she was very hard to hit and that coupled with the fact she was always moving meant it really didn’t matter. She ducked the woman’s fist and webbed it up as it flew past her ear. She flipped over the head of the man making the woman fly into him, dazing them both. Then she quickly used the webbing to stick them together before kicking them right next to the blonde. She quickly webbed them all to the wall of the lab.

“You do know this is private property, right?” Alex asked the three who were each struggling to get free. 

“You’ll regret this! Do you know who we work for?” The woman snapped at her. If looks could kill, Alex would be 50 feet under by now. Despite the death stare, Alex was completely calm.

Alex rolled her eyes, not that they could see that. “Sure, I will, lady.” She replied sarcastically. Alex then bend down in front of them and saw the logo up close. It was a white crown with a gold pattern running through it on a red background, she hadn’t seen it before. “So, who do you work for?” She asked poking the logo on the blonde’s chest. He just tried to headbutt her. “Ok, rude.”

She then jumped onto one of the tables and sat on the edge. “So, what you are guys looking for?” She asked leaning forward. The three of them looked at each other then back to her, after about half a minute of them saying nothing. “I guess you’ll just answer to the police.” She said grabbing her burner phone (because she didn’t need them tracking her real number) and calling the police.

However, about halfway through the call, Alex heard a scream and a gunshot from where Ashlyn and Christen were. Alex dropped the phone and went sprinting as fast as she could towards her friends, no longer caring about the criminals stuck to the wall, they weren’t going anywhere.

When she got there to the room, Alex wasn’t really thinking clearly worried for her friends. She couldn’t find them in the room. Her panic intensified as she fired the worst. “Ash! Chris!” She shouted looking frantically for them, she shouldn’t have left them alone. If anything happened to them, it would be all her fault and she'd never forgive herself.

The two appeared from behind one of the support beams, Alex sighed feeling a wave of relief wash over her at the sight of them. “Thank god, I thought something happened to you guys.” Alex then noticed the man on the floor between them and that Ashlyn was holding a broken keyboard. He must’ve been with the others stuck to the wall.

Alex tilted her head confused, “Christen screamed and pushed him away from us, I hit him with the keyboard and his gun fired as he hit the ground.” Ashlyn explained, clearly shaken up by the whole experience. Christen just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. God her friends were badasses.

Just to make sure he wasn’t going to be a problem; Alex webbed the man to the floor. “I found three others. This one must’ve heard you and went to investigate.” She theorized with a shrug. “We should get out of here; the police are on their way. They’ll deal with it.” She quickly grabbed a piece of paper and a pen which were on the table and wrote a quick note to the police explaining what happened, then stuck it in an obvious place using her webs.

_Dear officers, _

_We spoke on the phone, anyway these people stuck to the wall and one of the floor in the other room. They were trying to steal from this lab. There are four of them and hopefully, you can get them out, though if you can’t you’ll have to wait an hour. Sorry if that happens. They shot at civilians (and me) by the way. Don’t worry I’ve gotten them home safe and everyone is ok. They were clearly looking for something, I dunno what. Can you kindly arrest them? I’ll owe you one._

_-Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderwoman_

The two of them followed Alex out, she wasn’t going to let them out of her sight until they were both home safe and sound. Christen stopped abruptly as soon as they were out of the lab, “Wait, we never told you our names.” She said coming to a sudden realisation about what Alex had called out to them in her panic to make sure they were alright.

Alex cursed under her breathe at her mistake. She turned back to them calmly. “I overheard you.” She lied trying to sound convincing (and failing), but she was at least trying to save face. Luckily the police hadn’t arrived yet, so they were alone. Also, despite Alex clearly being a force for good certain officers still weren't sure about her and could get hostile.

“We never said our names during our conversation,” Ashlyn said thinking back to what they were talking about before Christen spotted Alex on the roof. Then she narrowed her eyes at Alex. “Christen was right, you do sound familiar. Who are you?” She asked accusingly, luckily she wasn't threatening Alex with a keyboard this time.

“That’s really not important. We should get out of here.” Alex said drastically changing how her voice sounded and trying to usher them to move. They didn't move a muscle and continue to stare at her.

Christen’s eyes light up and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my god! Alex!”


	4. Everything changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christen and Ashlyn have figured out Alex's secret and Abby is acting weird when Alex calls her. What's Alex going to do now?

Christen’s eyes light up and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my god! Alex!” She shouted and Alex cringed knowing she’d been found out. Ashlyn then looked between them before coming to the same realisation as Christen just had. Both of them were gasping at her like fish out of water. They kept looking at each other before back to Alex letting this new knowledge sink in.

Alex let out a nervous laugh, trying to dismiss their claim. “Who’s Alex? What’s Alex? I gotta go! Did you hear that?” Alex stuttered in her complete panic at them figuring her out. She started moving to web away, not knowing how to prove that she wasn’t Spider-woman. Why was Christen so perspective? She was royally screwed.

“Alexandra Patricia Morgan! Do you dare run away!” Ashlyn shouted at her, clearly, Alex’s actions following Christen’s claim only added to their certainty. Also, Alex didn’t even think that Ashlyn knew her full name.

The superhero’s eyes widened, and she quickly covered Ashlyn’s big mouth to keep her from telling everyone in the area. “Oh my god! Don’t go shouting my real name in public. I’m trying to keep it a secret here!” She said scandalised at the keeper’s laxness about her name, she did wear a mask for a reason. Wasn't it obvious she was trying to keep it a secret?

“Wait, you’re actually Alex? I was only 75 percent sure you were,” Christen said completely shocked at this revelation.

She sighed deeply. “Yes.” She said in defeat, she couldn’t even last one interaction with someone she knew without being figured out. She really needed to be more careful next time.

“That’s so badass!” Ashlyn exclaimed waving her arms in the air. Christen nodded clearly agreeing with Ashlyn’s statement.

Alex could hear the screech of police sirens coming their way. “I’ll explain everything, but we need to get going. I’ll meet you at Ashlyn’s as soon as I can, now go before the police get here.” Then she webbed herself away and she watched as her friends quickly disappeared. They just about got out before the police arrived at the scene.

She decided to call Abby to tell her what happened and hopefully get some answers. The fact that those people were looking for something concerned Alex. She knew that Abby was hiding things from her. “Hey, kid,” Abby said picking up the phone. She sounded tense, well more tense than normal. Alex's gut was telling her something was seriously wrong.

“Hi, I went to the old lab. There was a group of-“ Alex began to explain, but was cut off quickly.

“Listen, I really can’t talk right now. We can talk about it tomorrow.” Abby rushed out; it was clear that she really couldn’t talk. 

Alex was beginning to get slightly concerned, Abby had never once dismissed anything that she said and she'd said some stupid stuff these last couple months. Her anxiety over this whole situation was getting even worse. “Abby, are you okay? Do you need me to come to the lab?”

“No!” Abby answered panicked, the words being fired out of her mouth like a bullet. The tone of her voice worried Alex even more, Abby was intense but there was always a calmness to what she said despite that, this felt wrong. She heard Abby take a deep breath, “No, I’m not there. Just go home and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Abby said sounding calmer, but there was still an edge to her voice as she spoke.

“Abby-“ Alex began, her voice conveying her anxiety over this whole call. That’s not even mentioning the fact that she still didn’t know why those people were there. Part of Alex wondered if she was over-reacting to this whole situation. She didn’t know much about what Abby did when she wasn’t working, which to be fair wasn’t very often. Maybe it was just something within her personal life and she didn’t want to involve a teenager in her problems, that at least made sense to Alex, but she didn’t get why Abby was acting so dismissively towards her. It was weird.

Also, she kept cutting Alex off, which only annoyed Alex even more. “Please?” Abby was begging her to let it go. She sounded desperate. It was clear that something was wrong, and that Abby really didn’t want to include her. If something was wrong, shouldn’t she go and help? Definitely considering the gang that had just broken into Abby’s old lab. But maybe Alex was overthinking it, she typically did, it could merely just a bad time for Abby.

After pausing to think about it for a few seconds, Alex decided that she’d listen to Abby. Really, if the other woman didn’t want to involve her, who cares? So, swallowing her pride and ignoring her hurt feelings, Alex relented, “Fine. I’ll come by tomorrow. Bye Abby.” Her tone of voice clearly showed how she was feeling and even if Abby didn’t catch that, she hung up before Abby could reply. If Abby didn't want to speak her, why did Alex need to continue this conversation anymore?

When she arrived at Ashlyn’s, she knocked on the door to the apartment. She had gone home, changed her suit hoodie. Alex had grabbed a backpack to put her suit hoodie in and her mask, just in case she needed it later. It had also given herself time to cool off from her phone call with Abby. The door swung open to reveal both Christen and Ashlyn looking at her expectantly. They pulled her inside, well Alex let them pull her inside, and sat her down on the couch opposite them.

The pair of them were staring at her, obviously thinking she was going to just start explaining herself. Alex rolled her eyes, “I hate both of you. You do know, that right?” She told them; it was irritating that they figured her out. Alex was never really any good at hiding things from her friends, her feelings for Kelley being the perfect example of that, but she thought she’d at least be able to keep the fact that she was a superhero a secret.

“You’re just annoyed that we figured you out,” Ashlyn replied smirking.

Alex once again rolled her eyes, “Shut up.” She replied, she knew it was childish, but she really didn’t have a better response as Ashlyn wasn’t wrong about that. Why did things like this always have to happen to her? What had she done in a past life to deserve this?

“How did it happen?” Christen asked leaning forward in her chair.

“Do you remember when we snuck into that lab a couple of months ago?”

* * *

After a whole hour of Alex explaining every question they had, and Alex meant _every _question they had. She understood all the questions but was Ashlyn’s question of “Do you sleep in a big web?” really necessary (Alex didn’t even warrant that with a response). However, they seemed to be all caught up on her abilities and how they got to the point where they found out. That Alex was delighted over.

Alex had also relented to Ashlyn’s constant asking to try out her web-shooters. Alex had kept them on, pulling sleeves over them to concealing them. She’d started doing that lately just in case an emergency happened, and she needed to act quick. Alex rolled her eyes, rolled up her sleeves and ignored the grin that took over Ashlyn's face. She took off one of them and fitted it to Ashlyn’s wrist.

“Chris, want a try?” She asked holding out the other one. If Ashlyn was getting a go of them, it was only fair that Christen got the chance to. They were pretty cool.

Christen laughed under her breath. “And break my neck? No, thank you.” She replied making herself comfortable to watch the show. Alex understood that idea, after all, she’d gotten her fair amount of bumps and bruises using them these last couple of months.

“So, how do they work?” Ashlyn worked examining the device on her wrist carefully.

She was about to press the trigger with the web shooter pointing towards her face. Alex quickly saved her by putting her hand on Ashlyn’s. “Be careful.” She warned trying to keep her friend from getting a black eye. She was nice like that. “Okay, that is the trigger, press it once to fire and double-tap to release. It’s quite simple.” She explained showing Ashlyn the mechanics of the web-shooter.

After about 15 minutes of testing it out, Ashlyn was firing it at various unbreakable things and pulling them towards to her catch them, or at least catching them, much to the entertainment of Christen and Alex as each time she caught it successfully she did a quick celebratory dance. However, she pulled too hard and it came flying towards a window aiming to smash it into pieces. Ashlyn watched in horror as it flew through the air. Luckily, Alex reacted and fired her own webbing at it and pulled it into her own hands.

After Ashlyn recovered from her mini-heart attack, she walked back over to them and handed Alex back her web shooter. She handed Ashlyn the object smirking at her. “Okay, I think I’ve had enough of that.” Ashlyn sat down across from Christen and Alex, who were both laughing at the keeper. 

“What were guys actually doing at the lab?” Alex asked, still not understanding what they were doing before they were distracted by the armed thugs. 

Christen rolled her eyes, “Ask Ashlyn it was her idea.”

“It was a great idea and it would’ve worked if Alex didn’t get involved.” Ashlyn defending with a shrug of her shoulders. Alex threw her hands up in offence, she’d saved them from that gang, didn’t she? Ashlyn gave her a smug smile, clearly enjoying Alex’s reaction to her statement. “Christen asked the love doctor for help and I was trying to help her with one of my brilliant plans,” Ashlyn explained simply.

“I don’t think any of your plans have been brilliant, especially when it comes to romance.” Alex countered, knowing all about Ashlyn’s plans. Once Ashlyn had convinced (forced) Alex to pretend to be injured in a training session to test how Kelley would react, what actually happened was that Ashlyn nailed Alex in the head whilst trying to clear a ball and gave her a mild concussion, Kelley rushed over but Alex couldn’t do anything about that as she was seeing double for a while. Why anyone would go to Ashlyn for advice perplexed Alex after that.

“You can say that again.” Christen said completely agreeing with Alex.

“Hey! I was once like you, crushing over Ali and too scared to tell her. Then I got us lost on a road trip and the rest is history. Now I’m with the girl of my dreams whilst you losers are moping over Kelley and Tobin.” Alex and Christen shared brief eye contact before firing a couch pillow each at the goalkeeper to shut her up for once.

“Have you told Kelley?” Christen asked turning her attention away from Ashlyn.

Alex shook her head. She’d thought about but she didn’t see the point in causing Kelley to worry. “Before you two, only Abby knew.” She’d told them about how she met Abby and how much of a help she was in the early days. She was still mad at the older woman and she’d give her grief tomorrow when they actually met up, but she couldn’t really tell her story without involving the other woman.

“I'd bet money that she’d dump Sara instantly and fall madly for you,” Ashlyn said having recovered from being assaulted by pillows. Alex grimaced remember what she saw a couple of hours ago, she’d forgotten about that until now. She scoffed at hearing her stupid name, that cheating bitch. She still couldn't believe that _Sara _would do that.

“I know you’re jealous, Alex, but she isn’t that bad.” Christen defended, Alex knew that she always saw the best in people when if they’re the devil incarnate. Though calling _Sara _the devil was a bit insulting to the devil, she was much worse.

“It’s not that. She’s cheating on Kelley.” Alex revealed causing both of them to gasp. Christen was definitely more shocked than Ashlyn as Ash also hated _Sara _with a burning passion after last year’s debacle. “I saw with my own eyes; she kissed another girl.”

“What a fucking bitch!”

“I’m going to kill her.” Christen seethed and Alex could tell she was deadly serious. Despite Christen being the last person to resort to violence, the whole team were all furiously protective over each other, especially when it came to outsiders. “Have you told Kelley?”

Alex shook her head, “I only saw it tonight. How am I meant to tell her? She’ll be heartbroken.”

The conversation was cut off by an army of crying police cars flying past Ashlyn’s apartment. Alex’s gut told her it was bad. She looked out of the window to see at least 10 cars and she knew that she had to do something. Ashlyn and Christen, who had been watching Alex’s facial expression shift, seemed to know what was about to happen. “I’m going to go check that out,” Alex said before grabbing her suit and quickly into her full suit.

“Be careful,” Christen said pulling Alex into a tight hug before she jumped off the balcony to follow the screech of the police cars. Ashlyn quickly joined in without another thought. She knew that her friends were worried about her, after all, they were all protective over each other and who wouldn’t be worried if one of your best friends had guns in their face on the regular. She nodded at them, before firing her webbing at the nearest building to catch up.

The feeling of underlying dread picked up as they turned each corner. It was a familiar route for Alex to take around the city. A left. A right. Each turn, Alex’s heart rate increased. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t heading towards there. They were going to drive past it and everything was going to be okay. Then everything came into view. There was a single police car there, but she knew the building well.

It was Abby’s lab.

Alex sped up moving faster than the speeding cars she had been following. She just hoped it wasn’t bad. That Abby was okay.

Abby wasn’t okay. Her first look into a window showed that.

There stood her mentor with a bunch of large men stood in front of her and one well-dressed woman, who was holding a pistol in her left hand. The men also had guns but there's wasn't raised. They were speaking, Alex didn’t know what they were saying. All she saw was the gun in the dark-haired woman’s hand and where it was pointing it. It was pointing at Abby.

The alarm bells were ringing her ears. She knew what was about to happen. Alex flung herself into the glass window shattering it.

Two things fired.

One missed.

Alex missed.

Alex stood there frozen as she saw the bullet fly and hit Abby in the stomach. She saw her mentor hit the ground. Blood pooling around her. The woman who’d shot Abby laughed, it wasn’t joyful but an evil twisted thing that sounded so wrong coming out her mouth. She motioned to one of her three guards to take Alex and then turned to leave. “Goodbye, old friend.” She was stuck to the stop, unable to move, unable to think. Alex made eye contact as the woman left.

Dark green eyes.

Her eyes were dark green. Alex felt the image burn into her mind. She’d never forget them.

Then the woman left as Alex felt a fist fly into her jaw. The pain woke Alex up and back into action. Abby was still bleeding out, her breathing was ragged. Alex needed to get her to a hospital or just any medical attention. She dodged the next attack and twisted his arm, snapping it out of the socket. Ignoring his cries of pain, she sent him flying through the wall. She didn't care about anything but making sure that Abby wouldn't die.

She collapsed onto her knees next to Abby. Alex couldn't breathe, so to try to get oxygen to her brain she took off her mask. She put her hands onto the bullet wound to try and stop some of the bleeding. “Alex…” Abby croaked out; her voice so weak Alex could barely hear her. She coughed and Alex saw blood leap out of her mouth.

“Abs, I need you to stay with me.” She pleaded as she saw Abby began to fade out. This couldn't be happening. Alex could taste her own tears as they flowed down her cheeks. “I’m going to get you some help, okay?” She could barely string together sentences through her own sobs. She began looking for a quick way out that wouldn’t make Abby’s condition worse.

One weak hand touched her face and pulled her face so that they made eye contact. Her eyes were dull and her face was drained off all color. Alex needed to get help and fast, but at that moment all of her attention was on what Abby was about to say. “I’m so proud of you. You’re my greatest achievement…” She trailed off and fell limp in Alex’s arms. Her last breath coming out moments later.

“No, no, no. Abby! Come back to me!” She cried trying to get her to wake up, to try and get her to breathe at least. She didn’t wake back up. Alex picked up her limp body and frantically pulled back on her mask before jumping out of the window. Ignoring the pain as she hit the floor, luckily it was only the 2nd story building so Alex didn’t break anything.

“Hey! Where’s an ambulance?” She said panicked. The paramedics were next to her in seconds and directed her towards it. She saw the doors close and Abby be rushed off.

Alex deep down knew the truth. Alex looked down at her hands. They were covered in Abby’s blood.

Abby was gone forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't hate me.


	5. The Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex deals with her grief over Abby's death.

Alex was in shock, she couldn’t process what just happened properly, or at least she didn’t want to. So, when she got home, she got changed. She couldn’t believe it; Abby wasn’t really gone. It couldn’t be happening. Any minute now she’d get a call from her mentor telling her that she was alright, that Alex got there in time. Deep down Alex knew the call wouldn’t come, but she was in deep denial about the whole time. Or even better she’d wake up and it would all just be a bad dream; she’d fallen to sleep at Ashlyn’s and everything would be okay. Abby would be alive.

One look down at her blood-stained hands and all of her delusions were shattered. Abby was dead. She stopped breathing. Alex was too late. It was all her fault. She wasn’t quick enough. She froze when Abby needed her most. She let her killers get away. She was useless. The flood gates opened, and all the grief hit her at once. It was crippling, her knees buckled, and she was left a sobbing mess on her bedroom floor, her eyes fixed on her hands.

After an eternity, Alex decided she had to move, she had to do something. So, she scrambled to her bathroom and began scrubbing her hands clean. She watched as the water turned dark red and travel down the drain. After a lot of violent, jolty movements Alex’s hands were clean of Abby’s blood, at least they were physically.

Then she went back to her room and lay on her bed. Her eyes now transfixed on her ceiling. The unbearable pain soon turned to anger. She was angry. She was angry at herself; she hadn’t done enough. Why didn’t she just follow her gut instinct and go to the lab anyway? If she had then Abby would be fine. Why did she have to miss? She panicked and it cost Abby her life. How had she let Abby’s killer get away? She not only cost Abby her life but now she couldn’t avenge it. Why did Alex ever think she could do this? She was so stupid for even thinking that.

Abby’s last words made it hurt even more, even when it was clear what was happening Abby wasn’t angry at her for failing, no Abby did the exact opposite. Alex kept hearing them over and over again, the words taunting her. Abby may’ve been proud of her but Alex knew the truth, she failed and it led to Abby dying. Alex could’ve stopped it.

However, the worst thing was that Alex was also angry at Abby. Why didn’t she just tell her that she was in trouble? Alex would’ve been there as soon as possible. Maybe she knew that Alex would fail anyway. Maybe Abby was just trying to protect her, she was only a kid after all. The angry which she was feeling towards Abby soon twisted and it became directed once again at herself. After all, Alex could’ve still saved Abby if she wasn’t such a screwup despite Abby not telling her.

Her eyes turned her mask. The symbol of all she became, it was a symbol of everything Abby helped her with. It was now a symbol of Alex’s failure. She didn’t deserve to wear the mask anymore. If she couldn’t protect the one person who was always there for her, how could she protect anyone? She couldn’t be Spiderwoman anymore. She just couldn’t be the hero anymore. Maybe she never was one, to begin with.

She couldn’t fall asleep. She both couldn’t bring herself to sleep as her brain wouldn’t stop, but also, she was afraid of what her dreams would bring. So, Alex spent the whole night analysing every little torturous mistake that she made leading up to what happened. However, soon all of that anger at herself was sucked into a black hole and Alex felt empty like she was an empty shell of her former self. As the hours passed, it all began to sink in and that only made her feel worse.

There was a knock on her door, Alex wasn’t sure what time it was but from the light streaming through her window, it must’ve been mid-morning. “Alex, honey? Are you awake?” She heard from the other side of the door; it was her mom. She could tell from her mom’s hesitancy and the tone of her voice that she’d heard about Abby. She knew that it probably would’ve hit the morning news by now and the whole city would know that she failed, and it cost her everything.

Alex didn’t answer and after a couple of minutes of waiting her mom came in. They’re eyes connected and Alex knew that her mom knew that she knew. Her parents had met Abby a couple of times, but they didn’t really understand the monumental impact she had on Alex, how much she means to her. _Meant_. Tears began to fall and all of it was too much. This wasn’t meant to happen, Abby wasn’t meant to die, Alex should’ve saved her, but that didn’t happen, and Abby died.

Her parents were able to persuade her to move downstairs and into their living room so that they could keep a better eye on her. Alex wanted to snap, she wanted to scream at them, really, she just wanted to scream in general. But she didn’t have the energy to do that anymore, so she ignored the worried stares and tried to concentrate on watching the tv to try and keep her mind off it (not that it was working mind you). They were forced to leave her home alone leaving Alex once again in a tornado of her regrets and grief.

There was a knock on her front door and after a small internal debate, Alex stood up and went to answer the door. She was shocked to see Kelley standing at her door. Their eyes meet and Alex knows that Kelley knows, they don’t need exchange words to convey that fact all they need is a simple look. Alex can’t stop the tears welling up in her eyes as she collapses into Kelley’s arms. Kelley pulls her closer as Alex begins to sob into her friend’s neck.

They stay like that for a while with Kelley whispering various comforts into Alex’s ear and rubbing her back. The defender moves them to the couch and pulling Alex basically onto her lap, her arms wrapped around Alex like a shield protecting her from the world. Even though Kelley couldn’t possibly know how Alex was feeling, after all her grief was intertwined with her guilt over not saving Abby, but it felt like she did understand and that was good enough. Maybe it was because they’d been best friends for so long and knew each other better than they knew themselves or maybe it was something even deeper, but Kelley seemed to understand whatever the reason was.

Alex pulled back, finally able to compose herself and stop crying for the moment. There was still very little distance between them as Kelley didn’t loosen her grip around Alex, not that she minded, Alex felt safe. “Do you want to talk about it?” Kelley asked, her voice soft and her tone gentle.

“Not really.” Alex’s voice was scratchy and raspier than normal. She really didn’t want to; the wound was too fresh and too deep, and she wasn’t ready to right now.

Kelley nodded, “When you are, I’ll always be here.”

“I know.”

* * *

Weeks had passed since Abby’s death; the grief never really went away as the days went by. It no longer was crippling and was more of an ache. She missed Abby, she missed listening to Abby mumble whilst she worked or when her face light up when an idea struck, she missed them grabbing a coffee, she just missed her so much. Alex would do anything to just go back in time and change everything, but she’d accepted that she couldn’t, and painfully she’d accepted the fact that Abby was gone.

She also hadn’t put back on the mask since. Maybe she had been wrong, maybe her destiny wasn’t to become a masked hero, not anymore. So, she went back to pretending like nothing ever happened. She played soccer, hung out with her friends and tried to ignore the itch when she heard a police siren.

A lot had happened really, Kelley had broken up with _Sara _two weeks ago. Alex hadn’t been the one to tell her, it had happened all rather dramatically. They were at the end of soccer practice, watching Sonnet try to teach various members of the team another one of her dances when _Sara _walked over to talk to Kelley. Before Ashlyn and Alex could stop her, Christen exploded after _Sara _said something bitchy. Alex can confirm that Christen did try to stick to her promise to kill her. No one could believe their eyes and the only reason why she failed was that Tobin carried her away before she could. After that Ashlyn was the one to explain and Kelley straight-up broke up with her. She hadn’t been as upset as Alex had expected her to be or at least she didn’t show Alex how upset she was.

Alex was sat in her room finishing up her calculus homework when her mom came into the room with a large metal briefcase in her hands, she handed it to her. Alex thanked her mom and looked at the label on the front, it was a handwritten note with her name and address on. Alex instantly recognised the handwriting and a sob left her mouth as she ran her fingers over each letter. It was Abby’s.

After taking a deep breath Alex opened the case. Inside there lay a single USB drive and there was clearly another layer under it. Alex decided to check out the USB first. Once she pulled it into her laptop, she saw a bunch of various files within it. The one which she opened was labelled, _To Alex. _It was a video file.

Once Alex pressed play Abby popped onto her screen. She was sat inside of her lab and Alex felt tears streaming down her face at just seeing Abby. She never thought she’d be able to see her again. Then she spoke, _“I have no idea how to actually start this.” _Her mentor awkwardly laughed and then turned serious, _“I guess if you're watching this I’m dead. I don’t know when it’s going to happen, but I will probably be soon. I’m recording this message because you deserve the truth, the whole truth.” _

Abby ran her hand through her hair and took a deep breath. _“It all began just after I finished my PhD. My girlfriend came down with cancer and I was desperate to find a cure. An old classmate of mine came to me with an offer to fund my research into those spiders but it came at a cost. I didn’t really care at the time that I was also making various things for my old classmate. I didn’t look into really; in my mind, it was all worth it.” _Abby paused and shook her own head with a deep sigh.

_“Then my girlfriend died, and I found out who I was actually making weapons for a very premiant gang, the Royals. I stopped working for them and they didn’t that.” _Alex gasped at that information, all of It began to click into place. It now made sense why there were gang members in Abby’s old lab and why Abby even died. _“The people who most likely killed me were the Royals, they’ve been making noise again and I know it’s only a matter of time. _

_“There is no way I was letting you get involved. Please, Alex, don’t go looking for these people, I won’t change anything now and I will only lead to you dying.”_ Alex knew she wouldn’t be able to keep to that promise and from Abby’s expression, it was clear that Abby knew that too. _“However, I need you to keep doing what you're doing. You have to know, there is nothing you could’ve done to prevent my death, I would’ve happened, and I’ve accepted that fact. Don’t give up on everything you’ve begun, you’re a hero and the city needs you. I’m so proud of you. If you haven’t opened the lower part of the case yet then I won’t ruin the surprise but just know that it's my own way of showing that fact. Be better than me, Alex. Goodbye.” _Then the video ended.

After composing herself, Alex walked over to the case and looked inside the lower part. There lay a suit of blue and red with a mask laying on top of it. Alex ran her fingers over the suit, it was spandex and was clearly well made. She lifted the suit out of the case, the bottom half was blue, there were black lines going up the sides, the chest section was red with a thin black webbed pattern running through it, a small black spider was on the front and on the back was a larger black spider. There was also a cleaner version of her web-shooters in the case.

Alex knew that she had to keep this promise to Abby, she had to continue her work as Spiderwoman otherwise she’d be spitting on Abby’s memory. She’d keep Abby’s memory alive by wearing the suit she made her and being the best, she could be. She’d continue to make Abby proud. So, Alex changed into the suit. As she looked into the mirror at herself in the suit, she promised herself that she’d do what was right and that she’d protect the city for Abby. It wasn’t her destiny to be Spiderwoman, but it was her mission to be that now.


	6. A leap of faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex, Kelley and the gang go to a party and everything changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I've been really busy lately with college (lame excuse I know). However, since I've been away for a while, here have some serious Kellex content.

Between school, soccer and being Spiderwoman, Alex didn’t really have much free time these days. That, of course, meant that she really wasn’t going to parties anymore, but she’d promised Megan that she could come to this one. Not all the team was going but most of them were and that was for one very special reason, they were finally going to meet Megan’s girlfriend. According to Ashlyn, Megan had every intention to make sure they never met Sue as they’d scare her away. That was fair enough, they were a chaotic mess after all. However, Sue was hosting a big party and wanted to finally meet her girlfriend’s friends, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, they were going (not they’d say no).

The party was already in full swing when they showed up. Alex did decide to forgo her spider-suit for tonight as she planned on drinking and it wasn’t safe to drink and swing. They meet Sue and she quickly joins them in bullying Pinoe before she’s pulled away by a loud crash in the other room. It doesn’t take long for them to join in with the rest of the people here and soon they’re all pretty drunk. Alex is dancing with Allie, Julie and Crystal when she’s dragged away by a very persistent Kelley. Alex rolls her eyes and lets her best friend pull her away.

“Beer pong,” Kelley says as they come to a stop.

“What?” Alex replies completely confused about what Kelley was talking about.

The other girl rolls her eyes, “Come be my partner in beer pong.” Alex hesitates for a brief moment as she really isn’t the beer pong type and in response, Kelley begins to pout. “Please?” She says drawing out the word, Alex knows that she’d say yes to anything Kelley asked at that moment, really, she can’t say no to Kelley. 

“Fine.” She says sighing and allowing Kelley to take her to the beer pong table.

Now, Alex wouldn’t call herself competitive (yes, she’s banned from all types of board games after last Christmas, but she isn’t competitive), she just likes to win and there is nothing wrong with that. Kelley likes to win just as much as Alex does. Therefore, it doesn’t shock anyone when the game becomes intense with their opponents being just as competitive as them. They do end up winning and Alex doesn’t use her powers, not once like who would do such a thing? (Alex would do that’s who). In their celebration, their eyes lock and there’s a strange tension in the air. Alex ignores it and blames it on the alcohol.

However, that tension doesn’t go away. Every time their eyes electricity flows between them. It happens when Ashlyn convinces them to do shots and as they tip their heads back blue meets hazel. Alex doesn’t know if everyone else can feel it, or hell if Kelley can but each time Alex feels like there a weight on her chest. If Kelley does feel the same, she doesn’t show any indication of it.

As the night goes on, Alex sees her friends get progressively drunker. After Kelley and Ashlyn end up almost starting a fight with another group, the more responsible members of their group (Christen and Ali) decide that’s its best if they head home. Alex takes responsibility in getting Kelley home safely and after her friend almost falls off the side of the pavement, she’s basically carrying Kelley home. Her arm is wrapped around Kelley’s waist and Kelley’s around her shoulder. “When did you get so strong?” Kelley asks as begins to play with Alex’s hand which is wrapped around her wrist.

“You’re not that heavy.” Alex deflects, deciding that it’s not in her best interest to actually look at Kelley right now or answer any of her questions.

“Nope, you’re strong.” Kelley slurs giggling to herself and her hands traveling further up Alex's arm, Alex feels like her arms are burning. “Do you know how perfect you are?” Kelley mutters and Alex can feel Kelley’s eyes on her. 

“No one’s perfect, Kell.” She replies keeping her eyes forward, she couldn’t give in to the temptation to meet Kelley’s eyes. However, despite Alex not looking at Kelley she can still feel the tension that’s been between them all night. Despite it being a cold night, Alex feels like she’s burning.

“Well, you’re perfect to me.” She says it softly like it’s a big secret which only Alex can know. Alex almost stops breathing, and her heart definitely skips a beat.

Luckily, they arrive at Kelley’s house which means that she doesn’t have to respond to that. She watches as Kelley opens her door, swaying from side to side as she does so. When she does, she turns back to Alex with a grin. “Goodnight, Alex.” She’s leaning against her doorframe as she says this.

All the tension seems to come to a boiling point as their eyes meet once again. Alex finds herself wondering if Kelley’s eyes have always had those green specks in them and really that’s the only thing she can really do; Alex is frozen in place. The air feels thick around them as neither of them can take their eyes off each other. Alex has no clue what’s going through Kelley’s head, well that’s until Kelley’s lips are on hers.

There aren’t fireworks. Instead, everything goes still, like time freezes and the rest of the world goes completely silent. She’s in the eye of a storm. Everything is calm and there’s only the two of them stood in Kelley’s doorway. Kelley’s hand on her cheek burns and all of the oxygen in her lungs seem to disappear, however, Alex never wants it to stop.

However, Alex doesn’t get a chance to really respond as it’s over before she can recover from her shock. She’s thrown into the worst of the storm that Kelley’s kiss was saving her from. However, she can’t breathe and there is the ghost of Kelley’s lips on hers. Alex doesn’t register what just happened until Kelley once again says goodnight and closes the door. So, Alex is stood there in complete shock for a long time, trying to regain her senses from the hurricane whirling in her head.

Kelley had just kissed her.

Kelley, her best friend, had just kissed her.

Kelley, the girl she’d been in love with for years, had just kissed her.

* * *

The next morning, Alex has processed what actually happened last night. Kelley had kissed her, that happened, and Alex was no longer in shock but she was confused; Kelley wasn’t into her, Alex had come to that conclusion a long time ago. So, if Kelley didn’t like her then why did she kiss her? Alex decided it was a mix of alcohol and Kelley’s recent break up because there was no way that Kelley actually felt the same way as her. Right?

She should’ve tried to get an explanation out of Kelley right then and there, but she was drunk and wasn’t thinking clearly; so she let Kelley get away. Now she didn’t know what to do. Should she just ask Kelley? That was a bad idea, what if Kelley didn’t even remember? Or worse, she would explain that it all meant nothing and break Alex’s heart into millions of tiny pieces. The kiss had opened pandora’s box and Alex felt like that helpless freshman again. She had no idea what to do.

After a long day of working out her frustrations on various criminals, especially any member of the Royals gang. Ever since Abby’s message, Alex had been hunting them, trying to figure out what they were doing and what they were up to. The files Abby left were helpful, but they were mainly incomplete plans for new inventions or theories. Working the street also turned up some information. However, Alex was left without a full picture. Alex had also begun to place tracking devices on each Royals car she could find, however, they never seemed to be in the same place at the same time, so that was no help. Though Alex had left an alert just in case they seemed to gather in one place.

From what she could piece together, the Royals were the most powerful gang in the city. Their leader, a woman who Alex still didn’t have a name for, was the one who killed Abby, Alex is sure of that. The gang is huge and seems to be growing by the day, like a hydra for every head she cuts off, two more grow back. They control the illegal weapons trade and have a sizable percentage of the cocaine trade. They have various wealthy politicians on their payroll, including the mayor of New York City, meaning that no one who could do anything about it will, well. It’s just Alex vs an army. It seemed that nothing in Alex’s life was simple anymore.

Throughout the day Alex was waiting for Kelley to text her, however, it was radio silence. It seemed that Kelley either didn’t remember or was ignoring that it ever happened. She’d take facing an armed gang of thugs over trying to manoeuvre this current situation. So, Alex did the one thing she swore she’d never do again.

“Hey, Al, what’s up?” Ashlyn said answering the phone.

“I need your advice about Kelley,” Alex said with a deep sigh. She really didn’t want to have to do this again but at this point she was desperate, and the rest of her friends were as hopeless as Alex was.

She could hear Ashlyn’s smirk through the phone, “What happened to your promise to never ask me for advice again?” She asked clearly smug.

“Kelley kissed me last night.”

There were a few moments of silence, where she could just imagine Ashlyn picking her jaw off the floor. “Holy shit.” The other girl replied in shock. “Ok, Ali’s here right now. Do you want me to get rid of her?”

“No, unlike you, she’s not insane,” Alex replied, after all, she knew that Ali already knew because it seemed that everyone knows. Also, Ali was almost more pragmatic than Ash was, meaning Alex might not end up completely making a fool out of herself. She heard Ashlyn scoff, “I’ll head over after I change out of my suit.”

* * *

It was a mistake. A complete mistake. She never should’ve done this. She should’ve just kept her mouth shut and bury her feelings deep down. But she just had to ask Ashlyn for advice. She should’ve asked Pinoe or Christen or Tobin or Allie or Julie or really anyone who wasn’t Ashlyn and Ali. Why she thought this would be a good idea was beyond her, but she did ask them and now she was in this predicament.

“Ok, lets just run this over one more time,” Ali told her leaning forward towards Alex.

Alex rolled her eyes, “I’ve explained it about a thousand times. I walked Kelley home, she drunkenly kissed me and then went inside her house. Nothing else happened.” She said sinking back into the couch. “It was probably just one stupid drunken mistake on her part.” Alex rationalised with a shrug; both her friends were unconvinced.

“Oh please, you two were eye fucking all night,” Ashlyn replies bluntly.

“We weren’t- how do- no-“ Alex chokes out, seemingly having lost the ability to form coherent sentences. All of the tension from the previous night came flooding back, she had just assumed that it was one-sided. “Wait, really?” She said still sceptical of Kelley actually looking at her like that. Sure, Kelley had kissed her, but Alex had rationalised it all away on being a random thought that popped into Kelley’s head, not something that had been building all night.

“Oh yeah, it was really uncomfortable to be around,” Ali answered with Ashlyn nodding in agreement. “Actually, it’s been happening for a while, if I’m honest.”

Was there a chance that Kelley liked her back? If Kelley had been looking at her like- Alex quickly shut down that train of thought. She knew where all of this led, heartbreak. She’d accepted a long time ago that Kelley didn’t feel the same and that was the way things were. This was all just one drunken mistake. Kelley would soon get into another relationship and everything would return to normal, right? Alex just wanted to pretend like it never happened, but she couldn’t. The feeling of Kelley’s lips was burned into her mind and she couldn’t stop thinking about it. “What am I meant to do?” Alex said defeated, running her fingers through her hair and looking towards the floor.

Ashlyn opened her mouth to speak but Ali stopped her by putting her hand on Ashlyn’s shoulder. They held eye contact for a few moments silently communicating. “If I’m honest Alex, we can’t tell you,” Ali said softly like if she was too loud Alex might run away. “You’ve just gotta listen to what your heart is telling you to do.”

“Love is just a leap of faith; you just have to hope that someone will be there to catch you when you jump,” Ashlyn said adding to Ali’s point about what Alex had to do next.

Alex knew that they were right. She was just scared. She’d jumped from higher in real life, she’d leapt off the Empire State Building and didn’t feel scared. However, those times were different, Alex knew that she’d be able to catch herself. This time it really was a leap of faith and only Kelley could catch her, that’s what terrified Alex. All these years, she was afraid to take that leap because she knew that if Kelley didn’t catch her then her heart would shatter, and she’d never get over it.

She could no longer hide away her feelings deep down and act like she was fine. She had to tell Kelley, but she was petrified at what could happen when she did. It wasn’t just that Kelley would reject her, she was afraid that Kelley wouldn’t however, then they’d lose everything that made their relationship special and they’d break up losing everything. But it was a leap that Alex had to take.

“I’m going to tell Kelley how I feel.” 


End file.
